mnocket

The luggage situation is what worries me about train travel in Europe. Some 1st class cars have a small luggage areas the end, but some don't. Pretty much you have to store your luggage in the racks above the seats, or if it doesn't fit, in the isle or on a seat and risk the rath of other passengers.

I understand and sympathize with your experience. However, being new to Regent, and most likely this board, you are no doubt learning that almost any complaint or negative comment regarding Regent will be met by a posse of cheerleaders who will leap to defend Regent and attempt to turn the blame back onto the person making the complaint.

It's amazing how peoples attitude towards Covid has changed - even with respect to maintaining their vaccination status. Here's what the CDC says... The percent of the population reporting receipt of the updated 2023-24 COVID-19 vaccine is 13.1% (95% confidence interval: 12.5-13.7) for children and 22.2% (21.7-22.7) for adults 18+, including 41.5% (40.2-42.9) among adults age 65+.

I don't think this is what the OP reported. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think OP said there was any credit for the room - just a 150pp credit and some OBC.

Sometimes it gets a bit depressing seeing product and service deteriorating virtually everywhere. I can't recall the last time I called a customer service number and had the call answered quickly and found the representative knowledgeable and eager to help. It seems it's happening across all kinds of businesses, but it's becoming especially egregious among the cruise lines. It's almost like business majors are being taught that the proper way to manage a business is to raise prices and reduce product and service quality/costs. Maybe I'm just an old foggy. Younger people seem unaffected by this trend.

This is one of the things that turns me off about VV. Having great restaurants is meaningless if you can't get reservations. Same goes for shows, etc. I don't go on vacation to compete with my fellow travelers to get into venues.

I hadn't really given it much thought, but I think you and @Pcardad made an excellent point about we old folks realizing that time is running out and if we don't tick off our bucket list now, we're never going to. Waiting for the value proposition to return to pre-covid levels may never happen, and even if it eventually does - we don't have the luxury of waiting. So yeah, the cruise lines can get away with raising prices and lowering offerings, and we're still going to book.

No you didn't. You stated cost of $5,650 per person for Crystal and $9,600 per couple for Explora (actually didn't say per person or per couple, but it must be per couple for your calculations to make any kind of sense). Please reread your original post and report back. And while we're at it, you may want to also review your inconsistency in comparing an 8-NIGHT cruise and an 8-DAY cruise and calculating per day costs in one case and per night cost in the other. You see, this inconsistency caused you to slip up when trying to compare the costs. You said... "Crystal has an eight night voyage starting at $5500 pp for an oceanview cabin and $5650 for a veranda … about $1375 per couple per day, again in a tiny room." You see an 8-night cruise = a 9-day cruise. Hence the per day cost is $5,600/9 = $628 per person per day or $1,256 per couple per day - not $1375 as you incorrectly calculated. Further, when calculating the Explora costs, your inconsistency in nights and days once again seemed to confuse even you... You said... "On almost the same days, Explora is also offering an 8 day itinerary … for $9600 or $1200 per couple per night" You see an 8-Day cruise = a 7-Night cruise. So the correct calculation for the cost per night is - $9,600/7 = $1,371 per couple per night, not the $1200 figure you incorrectly calculated. And finally, even after correcting your miscalculations, caused no doubt by confusion regarding your inconsistent usage of Nights and Days, we are once again left in a quandary when trying to make sense of your comparison. You see, you leave us with apples and oranges. In one case you present cost per couple per night, and in the other you present cost per couple per day. Two different things. So in the end, can we agree that consistency is in fact a good thing when comparing data? How much simpler, and accurate, it would have been if you had chosen consistent measurements... say settling on either X-Night or X-Day cruise lengths, instead of using both. And either cost per night or cost per day, instead of using both. edit: confusion abounds when using mixed units of measurements. I had originally misstated that an 8-Day cruise = a 9-Night cruise instead of it being a 7-Night cruise. I edited to make this correction.

OK, I figured it out. You listed pricing for Crystal and Explora. In the first case your stated pricing was per person and you so stated. However, for Explora your pricing must have been per cabin, although you didn't so state. That inconsistency was the source of my confusion. Consistency is always a good thing when comparing data, don't you agree?

I wasn't clear. That's the same way it works in Colorado too.

I wasn't clear. You are not banned from serving on a jury. However, if you apply for an exemption, one of the check boxes that grants you an automatic exemption is being age 70+.

Right. You are not banned from serving on a jury, but if you ask to be excused, one of the listed reasons for automatic excusal is age.

It seems all of the cruise lines have discovered that they can cut back on their offerings and still sail with ships at full capacity. I'm a bit surprised that this seems to be the case for the luxury lines too, but I suspect the trend will continue until customers "jump ship".

Even if I account for one being an 8-Night cruise and the other being an 8-Day cruise, your numbers don't make sense on the cost/day. Also, good thing you didn't post this on the Crystal board or someone would likely have put a hit out on you😁

On a side note, I was recently surprised to learn that in Colorado you are automatically excused from jury duty if you are 70+ years old.

OK, NOW I see why people like Capt Kate so much.

I believe that practice is referred to as treating people like mushrooms😁

I remember seeing another post recently about this mystery cruise. The responses there were generally positive. People seemed excited. I don't understand it. Would anyone really prefer to book a cruise where the ports are unknown over one where they know the itinerary in advance? It seems some would, but it's certainly not for me.

I'd imagine it causes some confusion for guests who are on private tours🙃

For me it's been 100% of the time.

I can certainly understand your disappointment with the lack of communication and empathy from the captain regarding the multiple port cancelations - particularly when other ships did make their port calls. I recently had an experience on another cruise line (Windstar) where the captain handled a similar situation extremely well. It was a circumnavigation of Iceland in September. There were 5 ports on the itinerary. Not too long after we boarded the ship, all passengers were called to the theater for an address by the captain. He gave a detailed presentation, including Powerpoint slides, showing the weather conditions along our planned route. He explained the scale of wind speeds. He suggested we could download the Windy app and track the wind speeds and wave heights ourselves. He explained the dangers of proceeding into such conditions in the context of his many years of experience - and then announced that we would be staying in port that night, the next day, and not departing until the evening of the day following that. We would be skipping 2 ports and the schedule for the other ports would also be altered - totally impacting every planned excursion. His apology was sincere. His explanation was clear and compelling. Everyone left that theater feeling disappointed, but confident in the captain and trusting his decision. To continue the saga... when we arrived at the first port days later, we were supposed to dock at the pier. Instead the captain dropped anchor within view of the port. After a half hour, the captain came on the PA system and explained that the wind was hovering around 20mph (I may misremember this number) and the direction was such that if he docked and the wind got any stronger the thrusters would not be powerful enough to push us off the dock. Further the wind made it too dangerous to try using tenders. Hence, we would be skipping that port as well. 10 minutes later he pulled up anchor and left. We now had missed the first 3 of our 5 ports. You might expect a passenger uproar, but there was none. The captain's behavior and communication had built up a trust among the passengers and, while there was certainly disappointment, there was no ill will among the passengers. I relay this rather lengthy tale of woe to illustrate how a captain's communication can drastically impact a passenger's impression and satisfaction with a cruise - especially when things don't go according to plan. It seems in OP's case; the captain fell well short of the mark.

Today I learned that a drive-by cruise in Antarctica is not an Antarctica cruise. You might want to tell these people. They seem to think they are enjoying an Antarctica cruise

Simple, you can book a bus that will take you to the Blue Lagoon and then, when you're ready, on to the airport (which is nearby). This of course is dependent on the Blue Lagoon being open as it has recently been closed due to volcanic activity.

I'm sure the cruise contract says NCL can make just about any change they want to the cruise, but that doesn't make it right to wait until after final payment, or even worse until after customers board to announce a change they knew of in advance. In fact I find it downright dishonest. A good example was when Bora Bora enacted restrictions on ship sizes. This was known months in advance of many cruise departures, yet some cruise lines chose to wait until the cruises were actually underway before informing customers that they would not be visiting Bora Bora. Far from ethical in my opinion.

Yes, the original Starlink deployment favored the northern latitudes, but that is no longer the case.